FIRST it was pumpkin seeds and this week it's fresh strawberries that have had people surging to the shops with a gleam in their eye.

My spy at a famous High Street grocery store informed me: "You should have seen them loading their shopping baskets with strawberries, wholemeal bread and broccoli."

The cause of this mayhem is nutritionist Dr Gillian McKeith, the presenter of You Are What You Eat (C4, Tuesday,) who reckons that seeds and strawberries will pep up your sex life, and has thousands of Britons hooked on her advice.

The pick-your-own queue at the strawberry patch will never be the same again. The fact that Dr McKeith looks like Supergran's older sister ought to at least give us some warning.

"Nobody will know who Supergran is these days," said my shop sleuth wife, who I noticed returned home minus the odd pleasurable punnet or two. As Gudrun Ure's crimefighting old coot from the mid-1980s was one of Tyne Tees Television's greatest successes I beg to differ.

"Mind you, the woman does look anorexic," added my wife as she surreptitiously slid a jar of strawberry jam to the back of the fridge.

Not only does skinny Supergran's sister bully Britain's overweight families into dropping fried food and tomato ketchup and spam sandwiches from the menu, but she introduces them and us (shudder) to colonic irrigation.

"Do we really need to see all this?" said the woman who may never listen to Strawberry Fields Forever again as she hid behind the sofa cushions.

Much of the good doctor's advice is common sense that most of us know already. Of course, processed food is bad for you.

But it is cheaper and lasts a whole lot longer than the quickly-blackening bunch of bananas that nobody in the family feels like finishing off.

The good lady of my house has a raspberry rather than a strawberry for Colin McAllister and Justin Ryan, who are attempting to browbeat the whole country with The 20 Quickest Ways To Make Money On Your Property (five, Sunday).

Two gems were putting half your clutter in storage for £50 a month and hiring expensive electrical gadgets - to show potential buyers what they can aspire towards! - at £50 a week.

With most house sales taking a minimum of three months, C & J are taking quite a gamble with other people's money. The pair's thinking was so London-inspired that the importance of a parking space was No 3 on their list.

"We will never have to move again," groaned my wife who is the proud owner of an avocado bathroom suite, likes pine furniture, owns a heat-trap conservatory and has been busy putting laminate flooring in several rooms.

This weekend the pair are going to repeat most of their irritating advice and follow it with an eight-part series called How Not To Decorate.

Take my advice, decorate the front of your television screen with neutral colours whenever Justin and Colin appear... in ten years time, others will be ripping out all those brown-stained white baths in search of colour. I still don't think they'll be shades of strawberry.

Published: 24/07/2004